


Frenemies

by flootzavut



Series: Standalone NCIS stories [21]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Banter, Community: nfacommunity, Friendship, Gen, Heterosexual Life Partners, Humour, Kinda, Mild Language, NFA White Elephant Exchange, in my head, mentions canon minor character death, old married couple Fibbs, queer, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 12:10:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15048728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flootzavut/pseuds/flootzavut
Summary: Jethro looks up from the shot of bourbon he's nursing and pulls a face like he's an errant school kid whose mom discovered him reading a dirty magazine.Gibbs, Fornell, and the kind of friendship that's more like a really snarky marriage between two grumpy old feds.





	Frenemies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smackalicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smackalicious/gifts).



> Written for smackalicious for the 2018 NFA WEE.
> 
> Prompt in end notes.

* * *

_**Frenemies**_

* * *

 

"Nice dump you've chosen to rot in."

Jethro looks up from the shot of bourbon he's nursing and pulls a face like he's an errant school kid whose mom discovered him reading a dirty magazine. "Shit. You found me."

"I may be an idiot, Jethro, but I'm not stupid." Tobias is way too used to this. He's not sure how it got to be his life.

"Really? You mean I've had you wrong all these years?"

"Very funny," Tobias says. "You're a real comedian."

Jethro grins a goofy, smug bastard grin. "Seduce your waitresses. I'll be here all week."

Tobias wonders whether he'll hurt his eyeballs if he rolls his eyes too often. There are muscles in there, right? "Pretty sure that's not how it goes, Jethro."

That gets him an even wider grin. (It's easy to tell if Jethro is shit-faced, because it's generally the only time he looks happy.) "Maybe not for you, Short Round."

 _Oh, God_. Jethro can be such an obnoxious jerk when he's drunk and trying to pretend he isn't sad.

"You finished pickling yourself yet?"

Jethro looks consideringly at his glass. "Not entirely."

"Will you be done any time soon?"

"Do I got a choice?"

"No."

That gets Tobias a raised eyebrow and a reluctant (but more genuine) smile. This friendship of theirs may be ornery and frustrating, but it's deep, too. If Jethro ever stops bitching and moaning at him, then Tobias will know they're in deep shit or that he's somehow crossed an unforgivable line. In the meantime, it works for them. (Insofar as anything in either of their lives works.)

He sits down opposite Jethro and inspects him for signs of inebriation, of which there are many. His eyes are still sharply focused, though, glaring at Tobias, so he's pretty sloshed but not actively in need of being carried. Tobias is glad of it. Jethro's his friend (maybe his best friend, a thought that's more sobering than his takeout cup of black coffee), but that doesn't make dragging a couple hundred pounds and six foot of former Marine home any easier.

"So what is it that you're not stupid about?" Jethro asks eventually.

"Now you're just being an ass."

"No, I'm serious, I wanna know."

"I'm not stupid about where you go to lick your wounds after a bad case." Especially when that case falls on an anniversary Jethro would like to forget but most certainly never will.

"Nobody asked you to come lookin' for me." Really, who knew a middle-aged special agent could look and sound so much like a sulky teenager?

 _Nobody ever does. It's just what I do_. Tobias sighs into his coffee. It's definitely not strong enough for Jethro being in this mood.

He considers giving in, ordering a shot of something alcoholic and joining the drinking, but Jethro looks plenty the worse for wear already and needs no encouragement to drink more. He's a bad enough houseguest sober, and Tobias being drunk himself won't actually make Jethro easier to deal with. (He knows this from painful experience.)

"Did you think I wasn't gonna find you?"

"Well, I hoped."

"Bastard."

"Of course."

Insulting Jethro is no fun at all.

"If you're gonna get drunk and maudlin and not wanna be found, then you need to be a little less predictable."

"Is that so?" Jethro swirls the remaining alcohol around in his glass, tips it back in one go, but doesn't set the glass down.

"I'm being kind." Tobias lets his tone turn a little acid. "You need to be a lot less predictable."

Jethro mumbles something incomprehensible. It might have been 'maybe I did wanna be found', but Tobias wouldn't wanna stake his career on it. Or even a couple of benjamins.

"Come on, let's get you out of this dump before you catch something."

"Or you could sit down and have a drink with me."

"Thanks, but you're the one who treats drowning your sorrows on a school night like an acceptable lifestyle choice."

"Not drowning my sorrows, just taking them out for a swim."

"Potay-to, potah-to."

"'S my life."

"Leon Vance told me to find you or he'd have me permanently assigned as the NCIS-FBI liaison officer." It's not quite an outright lie; it's an unwritten rule that Jethro is his responsibility. Director Vance needs Special Agent Gibbs punching his weight, and Tobias has no desire to get in Leon's bad books. "I'm pretty sure he was kidding, but I'm not taking any chances."

"Why do I feel like I'm the one getting screwed here?"

"Don't know, don't care."

"Seems kinda unfair."

Tobias shrugs and jangles his car keys impatiently. "Well, you're coming home with me whether you like it or not."

"God, I thought you married my ex, not me," Jethro says with a put upon sigh.

"You got me in the divorce."

"I definitely got screwed."

"Yup."

"So did you."

"Uh-huh."

Jethro levers himself up from the booth with a little help from Tobias, and they stagger out to the waiting car.

"I don't put out on the first date," Jethro slurs into his ear.

Tobias is getting way too old for this shit. "Who's asking you to?"

"I just wanna be clear, Tobias. You married Diane, there's no telling what you might do."

"You married her first."

"Don't remind me."

"If you think you're gonna throw up, kindly do it now and not in my car."

Jethro makes a sound like Tobias just spat on his mother's grave. "Throw up? What do you take me for?"

"An inveterate alcoholic?"

"Thank you!"

"What's what got to do with anything?"

"In order to become an aclagolic. Alka- alcohololic, you gotta learn to hold your drink."

If Tobias had a spare hand, he would facepalm. "Gotta love drunk logic." He hands Jethro in. "If you puke in my car, I'll shoot you," he deadpans.

Jethro shrugs and nods, which Tobias takes to mean 'Fair enough.'

The journey home is quiet. Jethro, thank God, tends to be a quiet drunk. He'll argue and bitch and banter, but he won't monologue endlessly if left to his own devices, unlike some people Tobias has been forced to deal with. (He never, ever needs to experience drunken DiNozzo  _ever_  again.) In the grand scheme of things, it could be worse.

By the time they pull into Tobias' driveway, Jethro has fallen asleep with his head against the window. It's almost tempting to leave him there - he's slept in plenty worse places - but while he'd never admit it, his body isn't as resilient as it once was. If he sleeps out here, he'll be aching all day tomorrow. Tobias can do without both the complaining from the man himself and the earful he'll get from Leon Vance if Jethro is even more of a pain in the ass than usual.

(And, though he wouldn't admit it either, Tobias doesn't generally enjoy inflicting unnecessary pain on Jethro. Unless it's gonna be funny.)

Of course, Jethro is rarely so rational even when he's sober, and only Tobias' continued insistence gets him out of the car. Then he vomits.

"Sorry," he mumbles. (He must really be feeling bad. Apologies are a last resort in the world of Gibbs.)

"You missed my shoes and the car. On the whole, I'm counting that as a win," Tobias says as he wraps an arm around Jethro's back.

Jethro grunts and leans heavily on him, but doesn't say another word as Tobias leads him into the house.

It's always a performance getting a drunken Jethro into bed, but Tobias is an old hand by this point. Water against the hangover, so he's not an actual grizzly bear come morning. Advil down his gullet and a couple more on the nightstand, along with more water. It's a routine Tobias has gotten down to an art form.

It would be more annoying except that Jethro has done the same for him more often than he cares to remember. And has saved his life several times into the bargain. Yeah, Jethro's an annoying piece of work, but Tobias would rather have him than not.

"I meant what I said before," Jethro says as Tobias takes off his boots.

"What's that?"

"Not putting out."

Tobias actually does facepalm this time. "Trust me, Jethro, I'm not asking."

Jethro lets out a slurred giggle. At least he found his own joke amusing. "Spoilsport."

"Anything else you want to take off you can do yourself, you horny fucker."

"Now you're just playing hard to get."

Tobias sighs and heaves Jethro up from the seat, then guides him to the bed. Emily's Raspberry Rum Tart doll is still there; she's outgrown it, but not so much that she'll allow Tobias to get rid of it.

Jethro picks it up and touches its face, gently, almost reverently.

Tobias finds the thing damn creepy, but admittedly, if his daughter had died before she hit double figures, he'd also get sentimental about the doll she'd loved. "Emily still insists Uncle Gibbs gets her bed and her doll when he sleeps over."

That gets a genuine smile. Emily makes no bones about her affection for Jethro, even as she grows into a lanky teenager who thinks her dad is extremely uncool.

"Thanks," Jethro says as he flops down without pulling back the bedclothes and curls up around the doll.

Tobias tugs the comforter over Jethro as best he can. "Sleep, Jethro. You'll feel like shit in the morning, but at least you'll be able to function."

It's only when Tobias has turned the bedroom light off and is halfway out the door that Jethro speaks again.

"Tobias?" He sounds half asleep, his voice smaller than usual. Not quieter; Jethro can inject a whisper with a hundredweight of terrifying venom. He doesn't need volume. But sometimes he sounds less like Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, and more like the boy who loved his pop and lost his mom and just wanted a quiet life with his girls.

"Mmhm?"

"Why d'you look after me?"

Tobias shrugs. "Told you. Vance'd have my hide."

"Seriously, though. The real reason. Why's a bastard like you so willin' to help out a bastard like me?"

"You're always saying everyone leaves you." Tobias smiles, laughs; kinda rueful, kinda fond. "Guess I just like proving you wrong."

_~ fin ~_

**Author's Note:**

> 1) "I may be an idiot, but I'm not stupid."  
> 2) "I just like proving you wrong."  
> 3) "Well, you're coming home with me whether you like it or not."  
> (With a request for Fornell or Vance.)
> 
> I managed to get all of the dialogue prompts in - might be overly proud of myself for that ;) - I'm sorry I didn't manage to include more Vance!
> 
> There's also a MASH reference, an Indiana Jones reference (anyone who knows the movie "Air Force One" that well has a thing for Harrison Ford, okay?) and a really obscure in joke I only used to poke fun at a friend who shall remain nameless because I'm not _quite_ that mean. It's possible this story got away from me...
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it, my dear!


End file.
